At CinemaAttic we’re always excited to see what’s on at the Glasgow Film Festival, particularly when it comes to their Spanish, Portuguese and Ibero-American offerings. With their 2025 edition starting next week, we’ve dug into their 2025 programme to unearth five films from Guatemala, Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Spain. ¡Nos vemos allí!
Mexico 86 stars Bérénice Béjo as a resistance fighter in the Guatemalan civil war; when she’s forced to flee the country she leaves her young son in the care of his grandmother. When mother and son reunite in Mexico City 10 years later, Béjo’s character finds herself torn between her obligations to her son and to her cause. Like his debut feature Our Mothers, which screened at Glasgow Film Festival in 2020, Mexico 86 continues César Díaz’s exploration of the decades-long conflict and its lingering impact on younger Guatemalans.
(9pm, Thursday 27th February, and 6.10pm, Friday 28th February)
Karim Aïnouz last appeared at Glasgow Film Festival in 2020 with The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gumão. After that he made Firebrand, an English-language historical drama about Katherine Parr, but his latest film, the coastal erotic thriller Motel Destino, returns to his native Brazil (and his home state of Ceará). The film follows Heraldo who, while hiding out in a sleazy love motel, begins a risky affair with the owner’s wife. As she did on La Chimera, cinematographer Hélène Louvart creates texture by shooting on a blend of film formats. The heat is palpable, and every bead of sweat is accentuated under the motel’s neon lighting.
(8.30pm, Friday 28th February and 3.20pm, Saturday 1st March)
Kill the Jockey
Luis Ortega’s latest film is led by 120 BPM’s Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, a frequent collaborator of this month’s CinemaAttic guest Eduardo Williams. In Kill the Jockey Biscayart plays jockey Remo, whose reckless antics lead to conflict with the mobster he races for. A serious injury is the catalyst for Remo’s reinvention in a surreal and stylish film that’s fluid in its approach to gender and genre. Featuring a starry supporting cast – Zama’s Daniel Giménez Cacho; Ema’s Mariana di Girolamo; Money Heist’s Úrsula Corberó – and a suite of classic Argentine songs on the soundtrack, Kill the Jockey is a pleasingly queer film that builds on the homoeroticism of Ortega’s previous feature El Ángel.
(8.45pm, Friday 28th February and 3.35pm, Saturday 1st March)
Queens
Klaudia Reynicke’s gentle family drama unfolds against the backdrop of political unrest in the Peru of 1992. Elena is preparing to leave the country with her daughters Lucía and Aurora, but the law requires her estranged ex-husband Carlos to sign a consent form. Faced with the idea of his daughters moving to the US, Carlos procrastinates signing and tries to be more present in their lives. Lucía and Aurora find that their loyalties are increasingly divided: between life in Lima and a new start in Minnesota; between their responsible mother and their fun-loving father. This is the Swiss-Peruvian Reynicke’s third feature but her first made in the country she left aged ten.
(5.45pm, Saturday 1st March and 3.15pm, Sunday 2nd March)
Another period piece centred around a pair of siblings, actor-turned-director Paz Vega’s debut feature transports us to a scorching Andalusian summer in 1984. Following the seven-year-old Rita and her little brother Lolo, Rita is a domestic drama seen from the children’s perspective, whose imaginative play and games are interrupted by their father’s bursts of violence. Vega, who also plays the children’s mother Mari, creates a lived-in sense of time and place with details drawn from her own upbringing in Seville, faithfully evoking an eighties childhood.
